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The HTC One X+ is an excellent smartphone excelling in a number of areas and it's definitely worth its place among the great and the good of the mobile world.
It builds on a number of issues which arose with the original HTC One X, addressing storage concerns and improving web browser efficiency and the always reliable HTC keyboard – however the battery is still a bit of a sore point.
We liked
The design may not be any different, but we like that as the One X+ is still a handsome looking handset, with the unibody design exuding a premium air or superiority which can only really be toppled by the iPhone 5.
The beefed up processor along with the Android 4.1 and Sense 4+ updates makes the One X+ an even slicker, smoother and more powerful customer than its older brother.
The already excellent HTC keyboard has once again been given further improvements making it even better and for the first time we didn't feel the need to download an alternative from Google Play – kudos HTC.
We disliked
Once again battery life has let HTC down. The One X+ sports a bigger battery than the original, but it still seemed to struggle to see out a whole day, even with moderate usage.
It's a real shame as the HTC One X+ could have been a five star phone if the battery was up to scratch, but as it stands we just can't bring ourselves to believe it is worthy of the top accolade thanks to this persistent issue.
Apart from that there's very little to grumble about; the fact you can't access the battery or slide in a microSD card may irk some, but it's certainly not the end of the world.
Verdict
As we said, the HTC One X+ had the potential to be the first five star smartphone since the Samsung Galaxy S2, but unfortunately it's quite literally run out of juice before the final hurdle.
There are so many things to love about the One X+ and it really is a great smartphone. We urge you to give it a whirl in store, and while it may not have the fancy tricks of the Galaxy S3, or the cult following of the iPhone 5, it's happily rubbing shoulders with the big boys.
Is this the best phone in the world at the moment? Quite possibly, but we're going to take a few moments to mull it over before making our final decision.
